OKUS LAB: movement, illusion & hyper-aestheticism
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In the landscape of Belgian creation, Manu Di Martino – the founder of OKUS Lab – is seen as an oddball. Preferring the term ‘creative’ to that of artist, he has for over ten years been inventing research methodologies around movement. Recognisable by their hyper-aesthetic style and their saturated colours, his choreographies incorporate digital apparatuses (photos, videos and VR) deliberately stripped of any technological superfluity. Presentation…
There are some encounters that change a life. In 2000, the Liégeois Manu Di Martino embarked on his career as genetics and biochemistry researcher at the University of Liège when he discovered dance. ‘At that specific moment, I became aware that art existed. It was a revolution, my mind wavered: I discovered hip-hop dance, ballet, video, contemporary art, etc.’ he explains. An artistic world he would never abandon. ‘Facing a mirror, the combination of movement and their symbiosis profoundly affected me. With my body, I understood that I could create a sequence of movements. This love of composition pushed me to devote myself solely to this adventure.’ In 2004, he thus created OKUS Lab – a contraction of ‘OKUlar Synergie’, tacitly revealing the philosophy guiding the project: ‘I love creations which flatter the eye and are intriguing. They allow you to attain altered states of consciousness. With OKUS Lab I am trying to explore these possibilities through movement and hyper-aestheticism,’ the dancer continues. Yet, at no moment does OKUS Lab ever position itself as a dance company. It is more worthwhile to consider it as a structure imagining methodologies which enable the designing of a multitude of creative experiences.
The OKUS Lab methods
‘People have often wanted to know what I was creating, what I was going to do. For me, what counts is the research. Give me a carte blanche and we’ll see what the outcome will be,’ laughs Manu Di Martino. OKUS Fokus (formalised in 2019) is one of these methods allowing dancers to revel and express a personal narrative. ‘On the basis of exercises, I try to place the dancers in as much discomfort as comfort. I juggle with the psychological aspects to bring out what they have inside them.’ Manu Di Martino also begins his research on the basis of everyday items. With OKUS Papyrus (from 2011), he employs the medium of A4 paper. In amassing numbers of them, he forms a cloud of sheets of paper onto which videos are projected.
With OKUS Corpus Luminis (2011), he works specifically on the poetic deconstruction of the body and of movement through the play of shadow and light created by torches. OKUS Luminis (2011), another process, focuses on harnessing the way this light moves through the technique of light painting. The movements of light are photographed via a long exposure enabling their trace and the signature of the dancer to be visualised. Video is at the core of a different methodology, OKUS Fantasma (from 2004). It enables the filming of the dancer’s movements before stylising them in such a way to produce a kind of virtual double, an amplification of movement. The movement is deconstructed, modified in video, then transmitted to various video projectors, to be mixed into the final work. This outcome is synchronised with the choreographic performance and produces a sublimation of reality effect.
Illusionist of the digital
Even though, at first sight, these creations seem to be at the cutting-edge of technology, it is fascinating to note that Manu Di Martino leans on relatively simple and ingenious apparatuses. At the risk of having to adopt the position of an illusionist. ‘The public thinks that my creations are interactive. That they include sensors and other technologies. In reality, I am simply producing videos which I then project. What’s next? I know choreography by heart. In fact, I give the illusion of… I can see the funny side, to a certain extent, of this technological excess.’ In reality, Manu Di Martino employs mapping technology in a very simplified manner: on his editing desk he adds spirograph effects or duplications to an initial video which he then projects in scenographic settings. Artefacts, optical accidents, light painting and reflections of reflective surfaces; everything is done with a view to enthralling the audience. In the same way, two video projectors positioned perpendicularly can create the effect of 3D video. ‘It isn’t real 3D, but it’s exactly this tricky aspect I love.’ This restricted range of technologies allows the dancer to be in control of all of the technical aspects of their performances: ‘Once I am on stage, I do everything, I need this technical simplicity. I feel compelled to master all the elements of the composition. And then, knowing the musical and visual structure, for the rest of the time I am free to improvise.’
A VR project in development
OKUS Focus Immersive (2023), his most recent project in development, incorporates VR. A bending of the rule of technological starkness? Hard to say, for certain. ‘In 2022, I started a training course on Blender. But in the end I use very few functionalities. My speciality is choreographic animation and the spatialisation of light.’ Manu Di Martino incorporates into the 3D software programme files containing the motion capture recording of his movements. With that as a platform, all the combinations become possible. ‘I wondered, why not give a dancer four arms? How to merge two dancers together? It is perhaps a nod and a wink to my former geneticist profession. It is a phantasmagorical thinking which I have fun with. I wanted to create a hybrid dancer, mixing the movements of ballet dancers with breakdancers. There’s only the digital you can do that with.’
This upcoming experience has already caught the eye of the Venice Biennale (Venice Immersive 2023) and may well be presented there in 2024-2025. And, when asked if VR is a path the dancer will take over the next years, the response is unambiguous: ‘VR and the immersive are not one-way streets. I love movement, the idea of heightening it, intensifying it. I will very certainly take delight in projecting VR choreographies on stage and to have dancers dance in real time. Or else I will explore other still unknown projects.’
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